Raise up to $5 million from 1M+ people while increasing product sales, growing your brand, and engaging your community.
A Republic campaign is much more than fundraising. Our companies tripled user bases, sold millions worth of product, gained press coverage, connected with VCs, and raised follow on rounds at great terms—all because of their Republic campaigns.
Republic investors are your true fans and engaged supporters. They spread the word with their network, offer help in their field of expertise, and introduce you to their connections. Our diverse 1M+ crowd includes top-tier angels, influencers and engaged supporters, helping you beyond raising capital.
All Republic investors represent a single line on your cap table and act as a single investor—without voting or information rights. Our tools make it easy to manage the group as if you’re dealing with one person. Your crowd round won’t drive up operations costs.
Our Crowd SAFE is VC-approved. It won’t impact your current or future rounds.
You can raise capital on Republic before, during, or after your venture round.
Ecosystem leaders backed many companies that ran a Republic investment campaign.
A crowd round is an important complement to traditional VC, not its replacement.
It's been a hugely successful and exhilarating 90 days here on Republic, and we're excited to be able to use the support from our nearly 2000 investors to build the next generation of sustainable technologies.
Founder
Founder
Founder
Founder
| Business model | B2B |
|---|---|
| Stage | Late seed, raised $2M to date |
| Segments | Energy, IoT, AI, Enterprise |
| Description | IoT hardware solution for enterprise plug load management; uses machine learning to optimize energy delivery |
| Previous backing | Backed by BMW-MINI's Urban X, Urban Us Fund, Engage Ventures, and partnered with TP-Link |
Raising on Republic is a natural fit for our mission, and it means that not only are we supported by our members through subscriptions, but they can now own part of the platform.
CEO
Product
CEO
Product
| Business model | B2C |
|---|---|
| Stage | Seed stage |
| Segments | Social media, Design |
| Description | Visual organization social tool for creatives. Used by creatives at Apple, Calvin Klein, Nike, Tumblr, Dropbox, MoMA, Yale, MIT, Columbia, RISD, etc |
| Previous backing | Bootstrapped |
It's been really great to be able to reach out to our network as well as to reach an even larger network Republic provides. it's really about bringing people into our journey and showing them our vision what it's all about and inviting them to be a part of it.
Co-founder and CEO
Co-founder and CEO
Co-founder and CEO
Co-founder and CEO
| Business model | B2B |
|---|---|
| Stage | Seed, raised $770K pre-campaign |
| Segments | Healthtech, hardware, IoT |
| Description | Medical device startup creating solutions that give patients in low-resource settings access to high qualitycare |
| Previous backing | Backed by Columbia University, Cisco, Vodafone, ADAP, Techstars 2018 alumni |
Republic investors seek diversification across industries, stages and technologies, so many companies are a good fit. We’ve hosted startups across a multitude of sectors, including consumer, healthtech, edtech, AI, AR/VR, blockchain, food and beverage, CPG, cannabis and countless others.
We created a streamlined, startup-friendly process that makes running an investment campaign easy and affordable.
I'm convinced Republic is on track to completely disrupt early-stage fundraising for tech startups. Whether you're a first time entrepreneur or one with a proven track record, Republic is now an option you owe it to yourself to explore. Not only will the terms be more founder-friendly than you are likely to receive elsewhere, but in the process you'll be contributing to a future in which more of the power is in the hands of entrepreneurs.
Republic was a natural fit for our mission, and it means that not only are we supported by our members through subscriptions, but they can now own part of the platform.
I had no idea the reach of your platform. There are so many international investors. You guys have built something really powerful.
We have been blown away by the success of the Republic campaign. The intentions, platform, team, and process are exactly what founders need to be successful.
Angels and VCs bring expertise but the crowd brings customers and fans.
No rejection risk—you can re-apply as many times as needed.
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We spun out of our investor, partner, and sister company AngelList in 2016 after the SEC enacted Reg CF—the regulation that allows for everyone to invest in startups. Our CEO Kendrick Nguyen previously was General Counsel at AngelList. Republic’s portfolio of companies has raised more than $200 million from angels, VCs, and—through our platform—their users, customers, partners, and supporters.
Our most common fundraising instrument is the Crowd SAFE, and for that agreement we typically let founders and companies take the first stab at setting the most important term: the valuation cap. Our investment team reviews the proposed valuation cap and justification and may work with the founder to amend it if necessary.
In cases where a company is raising a private round concurrently with their Republic campaign, we ask that they mirror the terms of that round.
The average on the platform is just over $500,000 for 2019. Keep in mind most companies use Republic to complement (not replace) the capital they’ve raised from VCs.
Upwards of 90% of campaigns on Republic meet their minimum funding goal. The average raise on the platform was about $500,000 for 2019.
In order to run a Regulation CF campaign, companies are required to file a Form C with the SEC. This form will include some basic high-level information about the company’s financial history from the past two years: balance sheet, income statement and cash flow. It also will include risk disclosures and cap table structure, but individual investor names don’t need to be shown.
It’s actually pretty inexpensive. Most companies spend about $3k-5k before launching their campaign on making their Form C filing.
Republic takes a success-based commission at the end of a campaign: 6% of the money raised in cash, and 2% of the securities issued. For example, if you were to raise $100,000 on Republic, we would take $6,000 in cash and a $2,000 Crowd SAFE. In the unlikely event a campaign doesn’t meet its minimum target, Republic does not take any fees.
Companies pay for the escrow agent and payment processing at the end of the campaign. This typically comes out to about 1.5-2.25% of the capital raised. (The final cost depends on the volume of investment through different sources like credit card, ACH, or wire transfer.)
Using a nominee structure, investors are represented as a single line item on your company’s cap table summary, and there is no limit to the amount of investors who can participate. We’ve designed the platform and process to eliminate operational overhead and optimize for efficiency with subsequent fundraising or an exit event. Your success is our investors’ success, which is ultimately Republic’s success too. If you choose to convert investors to equity after raising more rounds, those investors who invested via a nominee round on Republic can be converted to a single equity shareholder (and “holder of record”) on your cap table through a custodial arrangement, with the custodian represented as the owner of record.
We’ve designed the platform to be as seamless as possible—even after a campaign. Since we use a Crowd SAFE, investors aren’t equity holders and don’t require K-1 reporting. They also don’t have voting or information rights. While these investors can be pretty powerful from a marketing perspective, we’ve kept them passive from a legal point of view. That said, we do highly recommend that companies use our dashboard to draft and send a twice-yearly updates to investors. It can be pretty top-level, and it’s a great way to let them know how they can help drive the company’s growth: sharing promotions, making introductions, hiring, etc.
Almost all companies make only one additional disclosure filing post-campaign. Companies file a light refresh to the Form C—the Form C-AR. It’s filed at or before 120 days from end of fiscal year, which means it’ll be filed by April 30, 2020 for you (assuming your fiscal year ends in December). It takes about 1-2 hrs to complete, and most companies can do it themselves.
Almost certainly not. We’ve had companies that have raised $10M, $17M, and even $50M before running an investment campaign with Republic—from more than 200 top names in venture like Founders Fund, Lerer Hippeau, Bain Capital Ventures, and Greycroft. For companies at this later stage, a Republic raise is usually more about the campaign’s marketing value than it is about the capital itself. B2C companies often see huge increases in product sales, user acquisition and LTV directly attributable to the campaign, and B2B companies use campaigns to source partnerships and drive inbound sales leads.
Our community is comprised of hundreds of thousands of investors and a strong network of ecosystem partners. We tend to drive the majority of investment volume through our user base and partner network.
Throughout your campaign, we provide exposure to our network through a dedicated email announcement, multiple newsletter features, promotion across our social channels, our ongoing communications with our suite of ecosystem and media partners, and more.
Additionally, you will have access to a dedicated campaign strategy team that will help you craft an action plan for your campaign. Through email communication, strategy calls, webinars, and office hours, this team will guide you through this process from beginning to end.
Regulation CF, or Regulation Crowdfunding, refers to part of new legislation enacted in May 2016 by the SEC. The law enabled non-accredited investors (the majority of the U.S. population) to invest in private companies for the first time.
Aside from marketing the campaign to your networks and communities, your primary responsibility post-launch will be fielding questions from investors and potential investors. During the campaign, interested investors can ask questions on a public forum for your team to answer. This forum has the benefit of preventing prospective investors from asking the same questions multiple times. You are not obligated to interact with this forum, but the data shows that the team’s engagement level and quality of answers is a key driver of campaign success.
